August 29, 2007

Intel Chairman’s Visit in Bangladesh

Intel Corporation is the world’s largest semiconductor company and the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in many personal computers. Dr. Craig R. Barrett, the chairman of this giant chip maker company, will visit Bangladesh soon. The purpose of his visit is predicted to find out facts for investment opportunity in Bangladesh. This came in newspapers a few days ago like:

“Intel Corporation’s chairman Craig Barrett will visit Bangladesh during first week of September 2007. This could be viewed as an opportunity to develop partnership that brings a win-win platform. Craig made similar visit to Vietnam in 2002 which triggered the staggering investment afterward.”

Bangladesh needs foreign direct investment (FDI) from companies like Intel, but the political and infrastructure constraints are not quite attractive for such investment from big companies. However, we have a huge labor force at a comparatively cheap wage which makes us attractive to them. All we need now is a chance to prove ourselves to the big corporates. If Intel comes and operates a hardware assembly and test facility in Bangladesh successfully, it will be a matter of time for other major global players to have the faith on the business environment and opportunites in Bangladesh.

Our current investment scenario is no less than pathetic due to poor conversion of investment proposals into actual implementation. Intel chairman is visiting us in a time when we are just coming out of a major flood, facing a critical political age. But we hope that none of these will stop us from showing our real potential to this big corporate player. Intel’s investment in Vietnam turned this country from a state where we are today to a state where we want to go.

This could be relevant that Intel has an involvement with Bangladesh already. There are a few hundreds of BUET students working in Intel’s Design/Fabrication labs in CA,WA, VA,OR states in USA. A few years back, they formed a body named ‘IBA’ (Intel Bangladesh Association), which was approved by Intel authorities. And as an acknowledgment of contribution from this university, Intel funded for a simulation lab named ‘Robert Noyce Simulation Lab’ (named after one of the two founders of Intel) in Electrical & Electronic Dept of BUET. You can find details on IBA here: http://www.buet.ac.bd/eee/iba

In our next AABEA event of 4th September with Dr. Ishfaqur Reza in Santa Clara, I would like to know whether IBA is behind this visit of Craig Barrett to Bangladesh. NRBs have been trying to portray Bangladesh in a positive manner throughout the world and I believe this is one of those efforts.

If Intel thinks that the one engineer’s wage in USA can accomodate 10 engineers in Bangladesh, it may be good enough to outweigh the current infrastructure lackings we have. Imagine Intel investing $200 million or $500 million in Bangladesh and the economic picture of the country will change radically as other foreign investors will feel safe to invest here as well.

The caretaker govt should have done their homework to take proper advantage of Dr. Barrett’s visit to Bangladesh and show him our strength and potential. We are looking forward to this visit with lot of hopes, with great expectations. We can do it, we will do it.